I showed you this image in the last post, as we walked by on our way to lunch, and now I need it for mise en scene. The Duomo is in the middle. It's campanile is on the right. On the left is the Baptistry. According to Wikipedia, the Baptistry is one of the oldest buildings in Florence, and is almost 1000 years old. Looking at this trio now, I realize that the Baptistry is much plainer. Much less carving, and no pink marble.....
In 1425, Lorenzo Ghiberti got a commission to decorate the Baptistry's east doors (he won a competition to decorate the north doors in the early 15th century). Michelangelo called these doors The Gates of Paradise.......
It took decades to make all of these panels.
Here's a look at what can be done with Photoshop Elements' tools for dealing with distorted rectangles...... This is my original shot, looking up and over people's heads at the door.
This is the same image as above, reshaped back to rectangular. Cool, to be able to fix that much distortion!
Closeup of lower left corner.
Another straightened-out panel.
Doesn't this guy totally look like he's on the phone?
We had forgotten how high the relief is. Some of the figures are almost free of the background.
You have to buy a ticket to go into the Baptistry, so we didn't do that right then. There was no line to go in the Duomo itself, so we did that.
For a building that is so heavily embellished on the outside, it is very plain inside.
It has cool floors, with 3-D effects from the use of different colors of marble.
It's impossible to tell from this rather blurry pic just where the different pieces of glass are, but we can certainly see that the design of the windows is very complex!
It was so dark in there that I didn't see the 3-D effect of this part of the floor until I looked at this at home, on "the big screen."
Back outside. A closeup of some of the marble mosaic on the Duomo's facade. Imagining how long it took to cut those perfectly fitting curved tiles......
Tourists, including a bunch of young clerics having their picture taken in front of the Duomo.
Walking on home to our apartment.
Stopping in the grocery. We needed something better for lighting the stove than a cigarette lighter. I used the dictionary app my daughter put on my iPod, found "box of matches", and showed it to the clerk in the store. He told me "No. We have lighters!" Um. Thanks, but no thanks. (And ... humph! Ah well.....)
Wow. Here's a distraction from my no-matches annoyance. I mean, I know this isn't a real jar of Nutella, but -- what if it were real!
"I'll have the 5-gallon jar, please!" Mmmmmmmmmmmm!!!
Dinner time.
Za-Za was on the market square, so it was extremely convenient to our apartment.
There were a lot of products in the restaurant with a Za-Za label, and you could buy some to take home, if you wanted.
It was a fun and quirky place. These items were in a niche in the wall, just above my place at the table.
Note black rooster in a red circle on the neck of the Za Chianti Classico. That means the wine was approved by the governing body who decides whether wine can be sold as Chianti Classico.
Mixed chairs, interesting decoration.....
On our table -- Za-Za olive oil, and aceto balsamico (not tradizionale!).
Against the wall to my right -- the in-house store, with more dolls. And a boat.
There were a bunch of small lights behind me. I liked their reflection in the glasses.
Deep fried artichoke slices. This was yummy.
A soup lover's lucky day! A soup-tasting option on the menu! Three soups..... The largest portion is bean and barley. I'd never thought of putting grain in bean soup. It was really good. Both of the other two have bread in them, which is why they are thick. The red one has tomato, and the one with green bits is ribolita. We learned the next day that a restaurant can be judged on the quality of its ribolita.....
I loved all three of these. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
My daughter had hare pate. I had a taste. I thought it was good, but rich. I could eat a few bites, but didn't want more.
I loved ZaZa -- food and ambience both. And -- when they brought back my credit card, they gave us two little boxes of matches!!!!!! Now we could light the stove in comfort and safety! Hooray!!!
Another excellent day in Italy!
One of the things I love about Photoshop Elements is that its Organizer displays pics in the order they were taken. (NOT name order, but the order in which the pics were taken.) This means that pics taken by different cameras are properly interleaved (IFF you have set your cameras to the same time!).
My Organizer shows the newest pics at the top of the list. If I scroll down from the last pic taken on the 12th, I see the first pics taken on the 11th.
Can you believe that just one day ago, we began our morning standing on this blissfully quiet and sunny patio? When I scrolled down and saw this pic I thought "ONE day ago? NO WAY."
Yes. Way............................................
Talk about having your days "just packed"!!! Amazing.
Buona notte!
In order to facilitate chronological traversal of these posts, here is a link to the next post.
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